Apple Cedes Market Share in Smartphone Operating System Market as Android Surges and Windows Phone Gains, According to IDC  —  Despite beating Wall Street expectations in terms of shipment volumes, Apple's share in the worldwide smartphone operating system market posted a year-over-year decline during the second quarter of 2013 (2Q13).

AOL Makes the Biggest Buy of the Tim Armstrong Era: $405 Million for Adap.TV  —  Tim Armstrong hasn't bought anything for a couple years.  Now he has made his biggest purchase since taking over AOL in 2009: AOL is buying Web video company Adap.TV for $405 million in cash and stock.

LG's new G2: high-end smartphone in the front, button party in the back  —  It left very little up to the imagination, but LG has finally, officially, shown off the G2 smartphone it's been talking so much about.  The G2 is the company's new flagship, the first without the Optimus branding.

Facebook Takes on Twitter by Courting Celebrities, Building Twittery Tools  —  When Channing Tatum wanted to publish the first picture of his new baby in June, he didn't go to People or Us Magazine.  Instead, he posted on his Facebook page.  —  And when Andy Murray won a surprise victory …

The Quiet Mobile Giant: With 300M Active Users, WhatsApp Adds Voice Messaging  —  WhatsApp, a tiny startup with a very basic idea, boring design and lots of competition, has somehow managed to connect up most of the world.  And that's actually pretty exciting.

Groupon Names Eric Lefkofsky Permanent CEO;Q2 Revenue Beats Street  —  The Groupon CEO search is over at the man at the top is a familiar one: co-founder Eric Lefkofsky.  —  The company announced today that he will man the job permanently, after being named co-CEO along with Ted Leonsis when Andrew Mason was fired.

Apple succeeds on appeal: dismissed ITC patent case against Google's Motorola Mobility alive again  —  The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just handed down its opinion on Apple's appeal of the ITC's March 2012 dismissal of its three-patent complaint against now-Google-owned Motorola Mobility.

3 senior BlackBerry executives leaving company  —  Departures come almost 2 weeks after 250 layoffs in Waterloo  —  Almost two weeks after 250 employees were let go from BlackBerry's testing facility in Waterloo, Ont., CBC News has confirmed three senior members of the company will also be leaving.

500px Scores $8.8M Series A From Andreessen Horowitz & Harrison Metal To Build A Photo Marketplace, Expand Consumer Reach  —  500px, the Toronto-based photo sharing service aimed at enthusiasts and pro photographers, has closed on $8.8 million in Series A funding dually led by Andreessen Horowitz …

Apple Faces Hurdles Attracting First-Time Smartphone Buyers  —  While Apple does extremely well in the global and domestic smartphone markets, they aren't doing as well among first-time smartphone buyers as one might think.  —  A new study paints an interesting picture of the first-time phone buyer and the devices they are choosing.

Tech Magnates Bet on Booker in Web Venture  —  The conference room in the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of LinkedIn was packed with the stars of Silicon Valley.  Top executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter gathered around a table; the billionaire Sean Parker looked on from a back row.

AppleCare chat support to soon go 24/7, new iOS-like web support interface coming  —  In the coming weeks, Apple will be making significant enhancements and changes to its AppleCare support service, according to sources.  Planned to go live as soon as Monday, August 12th is 24 hours a day …

On Location with Foursquare  —  There's a great, deep story by Austin Carr in Fast Company today giving a broad overview of where Foursquare is headed, as a product and as a company.  I was quoted a few times in the piece, and spent a good bit of time talking to Austin …

How to Convince Investors  —  (This is one of a pair of essays on fundraising.  The next one, on fundraising tactics, is coming soon.)  —  When people hurt themselves lifting heavy things, it's usually because they try to lift with their back.  The right way to lift heavy things is to let your legs do the work.

Amazon Appstore Now Open To Web Apps, With One-Click In-App Purchases In Tow  —  Amazon today is announcing a significant expansion to its mobile application marketplace, the Amazon Appstore, which will now be open to developers of HTML5 web applications and mobile websites.

Instagram brings video to Ice Cream Sandwich users, lets you import videos from your library  —  Instagram has just been updated to version 4.1 — the first major release since video landed in the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app.  —  With this update, users can now import video from their library …

Bing Weather, News, Sports, and Finance apps now available on Windows Phone 8  —  Microsoft is finally launching a variety of its Bing apps for Windows Phone 8.  After shipping versions for Windows 8, Microsoft's mobile store now includes phone variants of Bing Weather, News, Sports, and Finance.

After buying back Bebo, Michael Birch announces its rebirth with a ‘ballsy’ video  —  Bebo's new owners announced today that it is beginning its initiative to reinvigorate life back into the social network.  The company released a video touting the changes in what it bills as being “ballsy”.

John Carmack becomes Oculus CTO, will remain at id as well  —  John Carmack, the co-founder of id Software and creator of the Doom, Quake and Rage series of games, joined Oculus VR as its Chief Technical Officer, according to a post on the virtual reality headset's Kickstarter blog.

Samsung co-CEO: We want Tizen to be on everything  —  In an interview with CNET Korea, Samsung's J.K. Shin talks about the opportunity for the upstart operating system to run on everything from smartphones to cars.  —  Samsung Electronics has broad ambitions for Tizen …

Samsung gains as Apple display supplier, says researcher  —  Despite expectations to the contrary, the South Korean electronics giant is growing as a display supplier to Apple, says NPD DisplaySearch.  —  iPad 4: Samsung is increasing display shipments to Apple.